Various arrangements have been disclosed, and implemented in the last several decades, and which facilitate the imaging of a stream of discrete products in such a fashion that defective or undesirable objects can be visually identified, and thereafter removed from the product stream so as to produce a resulting homogenous end product that can then be further processed for some given end use. The various machine vision applications that have allowed users to image, and then sort defective products have gained widespread usage in assorted industry segments. Further, and as of late, much effort and research has been conducted in the sorting of food products in an effort to further identify contamination, unripe food products, and other agricultural debris which might have become admixed with the stream or product before the processing of the agricultural product has taken place.
While great improvements have been made in various machine vision applications through the years, shortcomings are still attendant with the use of the technology which is currently available. Chief among the shortcomings is that certain debris, or unwanted material, sometimes is not visually identified as the product moves through the sorting process. This may be due to any number of different conditions such as, for example, the debris or other undesirable product is in an improper orientation when imaged; or further the undesired debris or product has the same color as the desired product, or still further, the debris or undesired product adheres to or is otherwise located in such a close relationship or proximity to a desirable product that it cannot be readily visibly discerned during the processing of the product stream.
In any event, food processors, in particular, have strived to remove as much undesirable product, and other debris from a product stream in order to ensure customer safety, and a homogenous product for packaging and shipment. Food processors, for example, further want to ensure that the processing equipment that is employed does not produce excessive “false positives”. These “false positives” are acceptable products that have been identified as unacceptable by the sorting system. This, of course, reduces the waste from the product stream, and also ensures that the food processor can receive the maximum available profit from the product stream being processed.
An object detection apparatus which avoids the detriments associated with the prior art practices, which have been utilized, heretofore, is the subject matter of the present application.